A cute little thanksgiving day picture for my folks. This paleo fantasy scene shows a sand tiger (tiger beetle larva) in his burrow offering some nuts to a Phorusrhacos chick (baby terror bird). He's not so terrible though. The picture was originally a pencil drawing, which I will upload to my scrapbook; color was added using photoshop CS. Hope you like these two cute goofy pals.

Hi, That's the problem with common names for insects. We here in Mississippi call antlion larvae "doodlebugs" and tiger beetle larvae "sand tigers", They are from different insect Orders (antlions are Neuroptera, and tiger beetles are Coleoptera), but they have identical ecological roles. Larvae of both insect groups are voracious ambush predators that lay-in-wait for prey to stumble past their earthen burrows. Tiger beetle larvae are just the most monstorous looking critters when viewed up close. I made the larva as cute as I could in this picture. Thanks for the question and all the best,

I love your general style and every critter you portray, but this caught me because of the tiger beetle larva! You don't see those drawn every day, and I believe it's the first portrayal I've come across on here. My favourite insects often happen to be the carnivorous, hunting kind, or the con artists. Tiger beetles look pretty and fearsome at the same time, and their young are oddly fascinating to me. A mix between ugly, different and powerful. And it's even more fascinating that the tiger beetle larva is hunted itself- by a slim, specialized wasp, or rather; her offspring.

You give an adorable charm to anything in existence- from dinosaurs to ticks!